


stand me up at the gates of hell

by glorious_spoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (or at least the very beginning of it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Canon-Typical Violence, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Podfic Available, Possibly Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: Home,he thinks, and tongues at the loose molar in the back of his mouth. That wasn’t the monster’s doing, or his dad’s. That one was all Steve Harrington, delivering a long-overdue ass-kicking via Cadillac convertible. There’s something kinda poetic about it, really.Or: Billy lives. That's really just the start of his problems.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove & Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 142





	stand me up at the gates of hell

The first thing Billy says to Steve Harrington in six months is, “Hey, King Steve, who fucked up your face this time?”

Max slaps the narrow hospital bed hard, like she’d really like to be hitting Billy instead but won’t because Billy is currently stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster. Like a mess of mangled corpses and shatterglass damage. Or something. He’s pretty stoned right now.

Harrington is scared of him, he knows that. Would know it even if it weren’t for the fact that he’s hanging back by the door even though Billy can barely get across the room to take a leak by himself right now. Billy’s got a nose for weakness, but Harrington covers it pretty well, all things considered. Rolls his eyes, shoves that stupid hair out of his face. “What the hell do you care?”

Billy doesn’t have a good answer for that, or for the weird stinging feeling that goes through him at the sight of the pulpy bruising down one side of Harrington’s face, his split lip, busted capillaries in his eye. It’s like he can feel the phantom ache of impact in his knuckles. Harrington’s lanky body limp beneath him and the echo of screaming in his ears. Max’s. The other kids’. His own. Harrington hadn’t made a sound.

“Just making conversation.”

Harrington gives him a long look, then says, “Russian spies. Why, you jealous?”

“Nah,” Billy says, and lets his eyes slip shut. Russian spies. What an asshole. “I did a better job of it.”

“Yeah, maybe they oughta put you on retainer,” Harrington says, an audible eyeroll in his voice. “Max, you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Max says, standing up from the hard plastic chair where she’s been sitting and reading a comic book for the last hour. Billy’s not even sure why she comes here. It’s not like they talk. She just shows up for an hour, paints her nails, fucks around with her nerd games, reads. Treats his hospital room like a goddamn spa and barely says a word to him. It’s pathetic how it’s still the highlight of his day. “Later, dickface.”

“Fuck off, _Maxine,_ ” Billy says without opening his eyes, and doesn’t even wince when she flicks his cheek hard with her fingers.

The door swings shut behind Max and Harrington, but not before he hears Harrington say, “Holy shit, you two have issues, you know that?”

If Max answers, he can’t hear it.

* * *

He’s been in the hospital for a week, awake for three days, when Neil finally comes to visit him. He brings Susan, and she brings an obnoxiously huge bouquet of flowers that smells like sweet rot and preservatives, a stomach-churning combination.

It’s weird. Weirder than Max hanging out here every day, weirder than Harrington watching him from the doorway when he comes to pick her up. Weirder than the memory of her grabbing at his face and sobbing over him on the floor of that shitty mall, although he’s not actually completely sure he didn’t hallucinate that.

Susan perches on the chair next to the bed and pats his hand, quick and birdlike. Her eyes are wide and wet, her mouth drawn in at the corners. Other than the hair, she looks nothing at all like Max.

Billy has imagined breaking his knuckles on her face more times than he can count, but that particular fantasy has lost most of its appeal lately, with the memory of bones snapping, bodies melting into red gore still echoing through his brain every time he closes his eyes. The holes in him were made by shattered bones, pieces of people reshaped into that thing he made. He tries not to think about that too much.

Neil hangs back by the door while Susan talks and Billy mostly ignores her. His jaw is set in a way that sends a flicker of fear through Billy, even now, even though he’s never gonna do anything while Billy is in a hospital bed with nurses all around.

It’s only when it’s time to leave that he moves into the room. Susan stands to let him crowd next to the bed, and he leans down, claps a hand on Billy’s shoulder, fingers digging in. It’s not a threat, not really, but some things are just hardwired. His chest twinges as he tenses.

“See you at home, son,” his dad says, and squeezes again. “Get some rest. Heal up.”

Billy swallows hard. “Yessir.”

He closes his eyes when Neil releases him, doesn’t open them when Susan pats his hand again quickly. Doesn’t open them until there are footsteps moving away and the door shuts behind them. Only then does he take a shuddering breath, his aching lungs expanding. He can smell the thick sweet stink of the flowers, lopsided in a cheap vase with a rubber band still wrapped around the stems. His eyes are leaking. _Fuck._

 _Home_ , he thinks, and tongues at the loose molar in the back of his mouth. That wasn’t the monster’s doing, or his dad’s. That one was from when his face made contact with the steering wheel of his car, spinning away across the parking lot with the impact jolting through his bones.

That one was all Steve Harrington, delivering a long-overdue ass-kicking via Cadillac convertible. There’s something kinda poetic about it, really.

* * *

He signs the discharge papers two days later later, allows himself to be helped into a wheelchair for the journey down the elevator. He’s tempted to tell the plump middle-aged nurse pushing him to go fuck herself, fuck hospital policy, he can fucking walk by himself, thank you very fucking much. He doesn’t only because he’s not completely sure of that last point and he doesn’t really want to test it out by falling flat on his face in the middle of the trauma center.

Also, he’s just fucking tired. He clutches his paper bag of prescriptions in his lap on the ride down and considers whether the combined contents would be enough to shuffle him off this mortal coil for good. Probably. There’s a shitload of Dilaudid in there, a grab-bag of other goodies. Enough to keep him thoroughly stoned until his heart stopped if he took them all at once.

“You got somebody to drive you home, honey?” the nurse asks by the doors, all smiling concern, and Billy pours some extra sugar into his grin.

“My dad’s on his way now,” he lies sweetly. “Thank you _so_ much, uh,” he allows his eyes to drift lower, lingering on the nametag pinned to her ample bosom. “Cindy.”

She blushes, somewhere between embarrassed and pissed off and flattered, but more importantly, she also _leaves._

He waits until she’s gone to lever himself out of the chair. Sways on his feet but doesn’t fall, and when the world stops spinning he pushes through the glass double doors and out into the soggy, mosquito-choked Hawkins dusk. The security guard gives him a long look over his sunglasses but doesn’t try to stop him.

He doesn’t have any clear idea of where he’s going, other than _not home._ The hospital is a little outside of town, fortunately, so he’s not stumbling through the main drag looking like a Romero extra, although in this hellhole that might not even raise an eyebrow. He heads the opposite direction, toward the winding double-yellow that leads out of town. It’s gloomy under the trees but still hotter than Satan’s asshole. Slimy and swampy and as alien as can be to the clean dry heat of the desert. Mosquitos drone around him, gnats tangling in his eyelashes and battering against his chapped mouth looking for moisture. He can’t seem to find the energy to slap them away.

He wishes he had a cigarette. Or better yet, his fucking car.

There’s nothing wrong with his legs, but his chest is a mass of splintering agony even under the drugs. He’s cracked ribs before, but that was nothing on this. The pain rolls over him in a tide that makes it impossible to think beyond his next step, the droning in his ears, the sting of horseflies, the excruciating drag of each breath. It’s meditative, almost, at least until a low rumble overtakes his senses. Crunching gravel behind him, and a car rolls to a halt in a hot puff of exhaust. He turns.

Somehow, it’s not even a surprise to see that ugly-ass Beemer pulled up alongside the road, Harrington staring at him from behind the wheel.

Billy doesn’t know how long they stay there like that. With Harrington’s eyes on him, he’s more aware of how he must look, plastered with sweat and hunched around himself, his hair straggling across his face and down the back of his neck. Feral, like some kind of fucked-up wild animal that doesn’t know how to do anything other than bite.

Steve could run him over right now. It would be easy. Nobody in this town would blame him.

Instead, he cuts the engine, pushes the door open, and steps out onto the shoulder, pushing his hair out of his eyes. It’s the kind of cool-guy Miami Vice move that used to make Billy want to deck him, but he’s off his game right now. Harrington looks solid and real, less like he stepped out of a TV screen and more like someone Billy could touch if he wanted to. Maybe it’s the bruises still showing up in greens and yellows and faded purple, a kaleidoscope of tissue damage.

“Billy,” he says carefully. “What the hell are you doing?”

Billy makes his mouth twist, stretch into a smile. “Going for a walk, princess. What’s it look like?”

Harrington stares at him, rolls his jaw, then says, “Look, do you, like… want a ride somewhere?”

* * *

Here’s what Billy knows about Steve Harrington:

He’s pretty like a girl when his face isn’t beat to shit, all doe eyes and soft lips and styled hair that he used to spend too much time on in the locker room after gym or practice. He’s tall enough and coordinated enough to be what passes for a basketball star in this nowhere town. He’s got a solid right hook, but he’s no kind of fighter. He has no instinct for blood. He’s _soft._

He’s scared of Billy, and he has been since well before Billy broke a plate over his face and then did his damndest to break his face too.

He’s scared of Billy, and he still put his body in between Billy and Sinclair back that little shithole house last fall. He had to know that Billy would chew him up and spit him out and walk away smiling, and he still fucking did it.

Billy doesn’t really know what to think about that. There’s never been anybody who’d do for him what Harrington did for some kid he’s not even related to. His own mother couldn’t be bothered.

He’s mostly glad Max stopped him from killing the guy. Beyond that, he’s got nothing.

He’s been avoiding Harrington, to be honest. Except now he's _here_ , offering Billy a ride and wearing a look like he’s actually expecting an answer.

Billy spits on the gravel. There’s blood in it, which probably should worry him. Harrington takes a step closer, exasperation overtaking the wariness on his face, and says, “Look, man, you look like you’re gonna collapse or something.”

“Aw, you worried about me, Harrington?” He taps his chest with one clumsy finger and regrets it immediately. “That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

“Nah,” Harrington says, although he does look… something. Not worried, exactly, but like he doesn’t feel completely easy about just driving off and leaving Billy on the side of the road. “But Max’ll be broken up if you die after all this shit, and she doesn’t deserve that. You even call her to let you know you were discharged?”

Billy suddenly has no energy left to play this game. Whatever fucking game this is. “Fuck her and fuck you too. Now can we skip to the part where you tell me what you want and then get the fuck out of here?”

“Jesus Christ,” Harrington sighs, and then he’s stepping forward, reaching out. His hand wraps around Billy’s elbow. It’s gentle. Even as fucked up as Billy is right now, he could throw it off. He doesn’t. “Come on. Get in the car.”

It’s as close as he’s been since Billy almost killed him last year. His mouth fills up with the bitter iron taste of blood and adrenaline, and then he breathes in and it’s just the smell of Harrington’s cologne, a hint of nicotine smoke. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Apparently, I’m keeping your stupid, aggravating ass from collapsing in the middle of the road and getting run over,” Harrington says. “Because my day wasn’t already shitty enough. Come on.”

He tugs on Billy’s arm, kind of experimentally. And the thing is, Billy outweighs him by twenty pounds, and Billy pounded his face into pulp the last time Harrington put a hand on him, and even as fucked up as he is right now, if he decides he doesn’t want to go there’s probably nothing Harrington can do to _make_ him.

For some reason, he allows himself to be led back to the car and pushed into the passenger seat. Harrington even buckles his belt for him, murmurs _sorry_ when Billy winces.

 _What the fuck are you doing?_ Billy thinks again, but the words feel like they’re trapped behind his teeth. He’s sweating through his shirt onto the fancy leather seats, and he’s pretty sure he’s pulled a couple of stitches. The paper bag with his prescriptions is still clutched in one hand, which he doesn’t realize until Harrington slides into the driver’s side and reaches over to tug it out of his fingers.

“Hands off the merchandise,” he mumbles, but it’s slurry and thick, the furthest thing from threatening.

“I’m gonna set it right here, okay?” Harrington says, dropping it in the center console. “Jesus. Chill out. You know, if you’re heading home, you’re going the wrong way.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Huh.” The engine turns over, a quiet purr. Harrington isn’t looking at him. His profile is sharp when Billy glances over. The bruises aren’t visible from this side. He looks like a nice all-American boy with the popped collar on his vest and his short sleeves baring lean pale arms just barely kissed by the sun, freckles popping out under a reddish tan. Like somebody who’s never seen the wrong end of a beating. “How come?”

Billy snarls, but even that feels weak. “Why the fuck do you think, pretty boy?”

“Okay,” Harrington says. His hands flex on the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go?”

 _California_ , Billy thinks. He can almost taste it, under the iron on his tongue. The salt spray and the shift of sand beneath his feet, rotting seaweed gathered under the pier and the call of the gulls. No monsters, no Neil, no shitty little Indiana hellhole, just sun and sand and the wide blue sea.

He’s a little worried that if he says that Harrington will just fucking head out to the on-ramp for I-14, though, and that’s a level of insane bullshit that he’s not really prepared for right now.

Instead, he licks his cracked lips, lets his eyes slip shut, and says, “I don’t give a shit.”

“Okay,” Harrington says again, and the engine rolls beneath them as the car pulls out onto the road.

* * *

He must doze off at some point, because the next thing he’s aware of is Harrington’s hand falling on the outside of his arm, a brief press that doesn’t jostle him at all. He still flinches away, sucks a pained breath between his teeth at the pull of shattered bones and stitched-together flesh, opens his eyes.

It feels like he should be disoriented, but he isn’t. The sunlight is less dazzling here, filtered through the tall trees that lean over the curving driveway to the Harrington house.

He knows where King Steve lives. Of course he does. It’s only the most fuck-off giant dick replacement of a house in the entire goddamn town. He also knows that Harrington Senior and his wife are pretty much never around, which probably went a long way toward cementing Harrington’s spot at the top of the extremely short pole of the Hawkins High School hierarchy. Big empty house, top shelf liquor, heated pool. What’s not to love about it?

“What am I, your prom date?” he slurs when Harrington circles around to open his door.

“Fuck off,” Harrington says tiredly. “Come on. Or, I don’t know, sleep it off right here. I’m going to go call Max and let her know you’re not dead in a ditch.”

“You’re gonna make some guy a real nice housewife someday.”

Harrington gives him a look that Billy can’t read in the least. It’s not fear, and it’s not the sharp irritated exasperation from earlier. It’s...something else, something that unsettles Billy enough that he doesn’t resist when Harrington pulls him out of the car and then reaches past him to grab the prescription bag while Billy sags against the hot sheet metal and watches the wobbling shadows that the trees cast on the asphalt driveway, the red sunset sinking down. When Harrington catches his shoulder to steer him toward the house, he just… goes.

Inside is cool and dim and almost antiseptically clean. Empty of any parents, concerned or otherwise. Harrington steers him to a white leather couch that probably costs more than Billy’s entire house; Billy’s hands leave smears of grimy sweat behind on the pristine surface, which is satisfying. Messing up King Steve’s perfect life just like he messed up his perfect face.

The bag crinkles as Harrington sets it down on the coffee table. “I have to call Max. I’ll get you some water, too. You look like shit,” he says, and vanishes again. Billy closes his eyes and feels the world spin slowly around him. Everything hurts, but it’s in a dull, distant kind of way that hopefully means he’s going to pass out or die sometime soon.

Distantly, he can hear Harrington talking into the phone, the squeak of his sneakers as he paces on the hard floors. He could make out the words if he strained, but he doesn’t. Eventually, the talking stops and Harrington’s footsteps echo farther into the house. Billy sets his head back against the couch and feels his mind start to slip down through layers of dark water, drowning and deep. There are monsters waiting underneath, he knows, but he’s too damn tired to claw his way back up.

Ripples on the water, a black sun reflecting off the surface of the Hawkins Community Pool. The Cars blasting out tinny and distorted through cheap speakers as Heather Holloway steps out of the locker room and then collapses into a puddle of broken bones and reddish slime that slithers across the deck toward Billy, and he can’t move; his limbs are wrapped in vines and he can’t move, he can’t _move—_

A hand lands on the outside of his arm. Billy strikes out instinctively, jerking away, and pain whites out his vision. He can’t even scream; his breath comes in a harsh gasp, and it’s some blank and agonized time later when he comes back to himself enough to understand where he is. In Steve Harrington’s house, on Steve Harrington’s couch, with Harrington himself sitting a cushion away from him with his hands up and a wary look on his face.

“You okay, man?” he asks.

“What the fuck does it look like?” Billy snarls. It comes out gasping and thin.

Harrington doesn’t snap back or kick his ass out. He doesn’t even ask what the fuck is going on with Billy. Instead, he just shakes his head and leans down to pick up a glass of water and a pile of cloth that Billy identifies, after a baffled moment, as sweatpants and a Hawkins High t-shirt that must belong to Harrington.

“What’s that for?” he asks, although he knows. He does. He doesn’t know what to call the feeling that goes twisting through his mangled chest at the sight, and decides that he’s perfectly fine with defining it as anger. “What am I, your fucking girlfriend?”

Harrington shakes his head and pulls the prescription bag toward him, shaking out the bottles. He tilts them toward the light, lips moving as he reads the labels. Billy watches him, feeling something inside him winding tight, and when Harrington leans past him to pick up the bottle of Dilaudid, Billy reaches out, quick as a striking snake, and grasps a handful of his hair. Harrington goes still beneath his hand.

And Billy just—he just—

Nothing that’s happened in the past month has seemed real, but he remembers the screaming jolt of agony as the Cadillac slammed into him outside the mall. He remembers coming to on the floor of the food court, standing, putting his own body between the looming monster he helped to build and the girl on the floor behind him.

He remembers feeling awake, wide awake, and fucking terrified. Only one of those was new.

Here in the dim silence of Harrington’s too-clean, too-empty preppy mansion, he feels it again. That same wide-awake sensation. He can feel the warm solid shape of Harrington’s skull under his palm, soft hair tangled around his fingers. It hurts; he’s been grabbed by the hair enough times to _know_ it hurts and even if he hadn’t he can see the fleeting wince on Harrington’s face.

It fades quickly though. Harrington is scared of him, he knows that, but the expression on his face right now isn’t afraid. It’s a little wary, but mostly just curious. Like he’s wondering what Billy is about to do next. Like he wants to know.

Billy could slam his face down into the coffee table from this angle. He couldn’t do much more than that, not with his chest as fucked up as it is right now, but if he wanted to he’s got the grip and the leverage to break King Steve’s nose, smash up his pretty mouth, make him bleed. Make him think twice about bringing home any more fucked-up delinquents he finds wandering down the side of the road.

Or he could pull him in closer and—

He jerks his hand away like Harrington just caught fire. Takes some hair with him, if the pained noise Harrington makes is anything to go by, but he’s barely paying attention. His heart is racing and his chest feels raw, panicky. Because this isn’t some stranger he’ll never have to see again. This is Steve _fucking_ Harrington, who knows him, whose face he beat to a pulp, who has no goddamn reason to keep any of Billy’s secrets. What is he _doing?_

“Ow,” Harrington says flatly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It’s sticking up where Billy was grabbing at it.

 _Sorry_ , he thinks without meaning to think it, but the word doesn’t make it past his lips. He’s wide-eyed and freaked out, staring at Harrington’s irritated face and messy hair, and it’s—stupid, it’s fucking _stupid_ , that’s what it is. He shoves himself to his feet, only sways a little, the beige walls spinning around him. Blinks hard and plants his feet. “Well, as fun as this has been, princess, I got places to be.”

“Like where, the morgue?” Harrington asks, and then, because he apparently has no sense of self-preservation at all, he wraps one hand around Billy’s wrist and tugs him back down to the couch. It’s gentle. Billy almost punches him just on principle. “Sit down. Jesus. Max’ll murder me if I let you go kill yourself after all this, you asshole.”

“Scared of a little girl, Harrington?”

“Like you’re not?” Harrington leans forward, picks up the water glass, pushes it into Billy’s hands with a deliberate kind of care, and then lets go, forcing Billy to take it so he doesn’t end up with a lapful of cold water. Then he reaches for the pill bottle and shakes a couple of them into his hand and holds them out. Billy just stares at them, then at him. Harrington sighs. “Do you have to be so goddamn difficult? Take some painkillers. There’s a shower down the hall, clean clothes if you want ‘em.”

He reaches for Billy’s free hand with his, and for some reason, Billy doesn’t stop him from pulling it out and dropping the pills into his palm. Then he caps the bottle, sets it back down, and stands.

Billy curls his fingers around the pills, feeling them adhere to his damp palm. “I almost fucking killed you. Why are you doing this?”

Harrington gives him a long look, then says, “You saved El’s life. Max cares about you. And—” he shrugs a little. “People change. If they want to.” The silence stretches out, and finally he shakes his head. “Look. Bathroom’s down that hall, second door on the right. I’m gonna go open the gate for Max. She’s on her way over.”

Before Billy can think of a way to respond, he’s gone.

After several minutes, Billy opens the hand he didn’t even notice he still had clenched. The pills are sticky and taste bitter, but he washes him down with cold, clean water, then finishes the rest of the glass. He contemplates the rest of the bottles Harrington left out on the coffee table, then shoves them back into the paper bag and reaches for the clothes.

He heaves himself carefully to his feet, then goes to see about getting cleaned up.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] stand me up at the gates of hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765493) by [morph_reads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morph_reads/pseuds/morph_reads)




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